Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

VERY EXCITING NEWS!
This is a little premature, but I am so stoked.

I'm waiting on ranier because I think I figured out even bigger news for tomorrow.

Anyway, I downloaded the Tech-15 mod and was looking through it hoping to find graphics I could borrow from Dennis on the mod team.

So I loaded ExaGear again and had tried running BotE XP and as expected it failed as I'm needing a total copy of an installed directory. That is how it runs windows programs under emulation on Androids as it can't properly install them. So that's in a holding pattern.

But I grabbed the troop editor, the ship editor, and the building editor and the data files to see if that would run under emulation.

IT DOES! What this means is, is that Android players could make changes, and save them, and then repack the apk, then have someone upload them (with blotunga's blessing), and then some people could try beta testing them. Or maybe I get someone to let me use their computer and I can sideload and beta test it myself.

If it works, I could start modding immediately. Not doing it the brute force method with Notepad, but with the editors. Then I can do 60 intel agencies in a day.

[UesugiKenshin]

I could then go through and add resource routes to main alien race buildings in a scale way by ratcheting up whatever the existing ones do and add +2 to each.

I could do the same with deritium refineries.

So if I change nothing else, then a lot of annoying illogical premature sabotage goes away. Resource routing are easy to set. There are more of them so more trade can happen especially with minor alien races, and so the mod would be based on a setting of at least 90% minor alien races on a giant map. You don't have to do it, but it would how it's designed. Then with more deritium, far more ships show up.

[UesugiKenshin]

If this works, anyone could run a windows emulator on Androids and have a simple mechanism to make basic changes. You could add ships and troops but we need an artist willing to do reskinning.

What requires more time is creating better tech (logical names and text descriptions plus art). That's six areas for each level and maybe 6 more levels so 36 graphics? That could facilitate a lot of minor alien ship designs that are reskinned, using the best of the bunch, and then maybe 5 more levels of troops (level 6,7,8,9, 10) x 6 empires so 30 units.

That isn't so easy unless someone knows of 30 existing units that fits the similar size of the existing troops.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you carefully examine each of the major races, each one is missing some facet of space combat vessels.So with so many new ships, they would fill that deficit as quickly as possible.

Their military engineers and design teams would weigh where the priorities are and how can they solve issues that exist...even when they max out.

What would really be cool would be minor alien race troops at the highest levels as local troops on certain planets wthat have special buildings could recruits units based on the indigenous lifeforms.

These minor alien troops might have psionic weapons or whatever innate powers their species have, and then are amplified with technology. Or you have something like the Dune series where the Fremen get weirding modules that are sonic weapons.

We can't take ideas, but we can make something along the lines of a disintergrating ray based on sound.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Völker_A-E
I would go through all the minor alien races and look for clues to overt abilities they possess, and some latent ones. And so with genetic engineering and bionics, then maybe these abilities are enhances into new forms of weaponry? And then just like the troopers add morale bonuses to the other Omega troops, then maybe they get some synergistic effects so unit composition then has a role in combat resolution for ground invasions.

Then you don't just send your strongest, but add some others that together the whole is great than the simple sum of their abilities..

[UesugiKenshin]

What abilities would an advanced enhanced B'war have?

The B'war are a strange breed. Although they are only a few millimeters in size and are very reminiscent of amoebas, they are very aggressive and do not tolerate strangers. Due to their physical disadvantage in combat, they have developed huge machines, so-called mechs. Two B'wars sit directly behind the two eyes of a 'Mech and control this battle colossus. Due to their ongoing wars of annihilation, they are now the only organic life forms on their home planet. Even bacteria and viruses have been completely eradicated with the help of nanomechs. A B'war itself hardly needs any food, no rest or sleep. He strives for armed conflict all his life. But B'war never fight against each other. In order to be able to achieve these goals, they have impressive facilities for the production of countless mechs. Should we succeed in impressing this xenophobic race, their production facilities will fall into our hands and will probably help us with the production of complex machines.

They are a kind of nanites and maybe a cloud of them is dispursed over the population during ground invasions...ripping them apart regardless of troops. Or maybe they are supermechs controlled by millions of them?

If you watched the remake of the Day the Earth Stood Still, the visitor Klautuu can't stop Gort in time and he sends nanites destroying everything in their path.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Baflids are little nifty "devils". Their unarmed demeanor is due to their ruthless diplomatic skills. You have developed in a largely hospitable, but not harmless, world.

They have the ability, depending on the nature of their greatest weakness - usually a phobia - to confuse their colleagues through telepathic projections and often even to drive them insane. Even their harmless appearance is just a projection. Accordingly, other creatures instinctively protect themselves against the Baflids, unless they are naturally belligerent. The baflids can take a lot of fun - they don't take anything very seriously and are friendly and curious. Despite their naive appearance, the Baflids are very intelligent and attentive. This species survived on its planet due to its thorough knowledge of the attitudes and interests of other cultures.

So you could recruits the most talented genetically bionically enhanced Baflids and use them against the enemy to make them be fearful. Some how giving them some ability to try to approximate this.

[UesugiKenshin]

The point being with 150+ minor races, 30 new troops show up to lots of different kinds of combat especially working with existing troops. And they can only be made in their home sector so transporting them around to be used at whatever battlefront.

[UesugiKenshin]

With random events, I would want seperate events that happened on whatever standard colonies and homesectors of the main alien races show up, and they would be unique to their species so each is alligned with the ethos of that species. The Terran events would be different than then Cartare because their culture has similarities, but they are divergent and peculiar.

And similarly if the major races had membership species, then unique random events would happen on those homesectors...that are even weirder than the main 6 empires.

See a story starts happening and the human player gets events each turn and so they can read them or not and it doesn't have to change anything but 156 unique species with say 25 random events per minor and major species, can be very interesting and makes the BotE galaxy immersive. That would fire 3900 storytelling opportunities. Some would be similar setups with radically different outcomes as what is acceptable in one homesector is anathema in another.

[UesugiKenshin]

Random events would fire describing love affairs, and assasinations attempts and jewelry heists. Arson, political intrigues, bribes, people tried and thrown into jail and torture, etc.

Every plausible thing could show up like descriptions of the planets and stellar anomalies and issues at fleet academies, and scandals.

This great grand sense of how bizarre and mundane the galaxy is starts unfolding with every turn many would fire.

Ideal they would only fire once. Over the course of an entire game, a book of related events would come up. They could modify empires or morale on a homesector confering benefits or harm, or just be storytelling.

[UesugiKenshin]

See BotE could be far more unique and diverse than Stellaris. It doesn't have animations, but maybe there is a lot more to it and it runs on just about any system.

[UesugiKenshin]

.bop files are renamed .png files and they are the image format of choice for buildings and ships and troops and symbols.

So here is the German wiki link translation
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... bearbeiten

So far, a lot has been edited with GIMP (here http://birth-of-the-empires.de/phpBB3/v ... f=14&t=885 the files as of 02/01/2011), the graphics themselves are PNG or JPG.

(Besides GIMP, of course, other programs can also be used - the free Paint.Net could be an alternative.

The xcf files from Gimp can be saved as * .psd and download them after installing the PSD plug-in for Paint.Net here: http://dl.cdn.chip.de/downloads/7964259 ... 1307985408 -1307992908-a92c4e-B-0705e2e70be06100905f1a8600043149 .

Note: You simply have to copy the downloaded and unzipped plug-in file "photoshop.dll" into the folder "FileTypes" in the Paint.NET directory.)


Download the GIMP, for example from chip.de , and familiarize yourself with it (tools, filters, layers, arrangement in the layer menu -> visibility in the image).
GIMP offline help can be downloaded from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html .

Internal help for GIMP here

There is a lot more at the link. I need a reskinner in the worst way to generate the slight changes to existing ships and troops and buildings. I used to do that work, but it's been a long time ago.

[UesugiKenshin]

My old Android tablet has minimal access to paint and photo editting progtams as the OS is very old. Gimp just refuses to run, yet that is the standard way. You have layers and that is how you reskin these. That is at least how it used to be. You would remove layers and replace it with another layer associated with one of the six major races. Then all the ships are "painted" in the same style.

[UesugiKenshin]

So that mettalic blue skin layer would be removed.


And the Omega, if having that Baflid shipdesign, would have their grayish metallic skin layer used instead.

And it takes an artist as maybe some of it works, but the rest has to be editted or it looks amateurish.

[UesugiKenshin]

A talented artist can grab elements from several ship designs, like a construction set, and mix and match them to create all new ships too.